I've already signed the petition, I just thought I'd lurk here for a minute since this is a petition that's actually got some meaning other than "Give us stuff!!!!!1!!DDDD<"
I've been here for a long time- hell I went through junior high and highschool on here xD- and I've known about Gaia since it first opened up, though I didn't join because the sheer massiveness of its many users scared the crap outta me. o__o
The reason I finally got up the nerve to join, was that despite the size, it seemed like such a tight knit community, and also because its was the largest site completely devoted to Anime/Manga, what the site originally was about.
Gaia was a fun place to spend my days; I'll admit, I spent many nights up till 6 in the morning just browsing forums and chatting with people till my mom screamed at me to go to bed.
I'm sure when they began, the team at Gaia had no idea that it would get this big. I mean, this is like the Anime Expo of anime message board sites. I'm even finding people on other message boards, sites like deviant art, Facebook and Myspace who have one- if not many -accounts here.
And of course, with growing popularity, changes had to be made, I won't knock them for that, but I've seen this site change in ways that are slowly leading them away from their central focus. God only knows when this site stopped being about anime and manga, and now spilled over into other unrelated and very unnecessary genre's- and I'm not even going to say anything about the release of politically geared items. I don't mind them, but I don't think they have a place here. They just don't fit somehow.
Its a little disheartening to see this uber awesome EI or this really great CS item, and then find out I have to pay 5 or 10 bucks to get it. Lets see, with gas as it is now, and the fact that I'm in college and paying out the a** for books I'm going to use once and then re-sell (and lets not get into paying for food. The dollar menu is my new friend), yeah, 'bout that paying for pixels thing...xD
I don't mind paying for things within reason, but being an artist, you like to keep in mind the idea of quality before quantity, and to tell you the truth, if I had the know how and epic skills that I'll never have, I'd re-design some of the items and things they come out with. Its like all the artists over there are doing what I'm doing now- procrastinating on getting stuff done. I think the only reason that the recent MC's are just so....ugh, are because their running out of ideas. Easy way to fix this? Head to the users. They could make an entire thread out of posting concept item sketches. The best way to get ideas, is if you work in teams and feed off one another, and with Gaia having so many users, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there with some pretty cool item designs.
I do agree with altering the kinds of ads we have on the site. Its inevitable that we get them, but I've not seen one that affiliates itself with sites similar to Gaia. I think it'd be great if they'd get a deviant-art ad up here somewhere, because nearly all the people I've met have an account over there. I think that could be updated....speaking of updates, I hate signing on and having to wade through 8 announcements. I like being informed, but for some things, one post is enough. -_-
Good lord...I didn't think this would be that long. o_O
LawlSorryGuys. xDD
Kay, I'm done now. =w=